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I’d never paid much attention to Holocaust discussions over the years, but the name of Murray Rothbard on the 1976 Reason masthead prompted a memory.
Rothbard is widely regarded as the founder of modern libertarianism, and I recalled in the 1990s reading somewhere that he had often ridiculed the Holocaust as being total nonsense, which had stuck in my mind as a typical example of libertarian eccentricity. A quick Google search seemed to confirm my recollection that Rothbard was an avowed Holocaust [revisionist]https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravd ... /#comments

Murray Rothbard
Rothbard's parents were David and Rae Rothbard, Jewish immigrants to the United States from Poland and Russia, respectively.

Despite... describing himself as a "mixture of an agnostic and a Reform Jew"[42] Rothbard was critical of the "left-libertarian hostility to religion".[43]

He was an American heterodox economist of the Austrian School, historian, and a political theorist whose writings and personal influence played a seminal role in the development of modern right-libertarianism.

Rothbard was the founder and leading theoretician of anarcho-capitalism, a staunch advocate of historical revisionism and a central figure in the 20th-century American libertarian movement. He wrote over twenty books on political theory, revisionist history, economics and other subjects.

Rothbard embraced "historical revisionism" as an antidote to what he perceived to be the dominant influence exerted by corrupt "court intellectuals" over mainstream historical narratives.[11](pp15, 62, 141)[106]

Rothbard wrote that these mainstream intellectuals distorted the historical record in favor of "the state" in exchange for "wealth, power, and prestige" from the state.[11](p15)

Rothbard characterised the revisionist task as "penetrating the fog of lies and deception of the State and its Court Intellectuals, and to present to the public the true history".[106]
He was influenced by and called a champion of the historian Harry Elmer Barnes, a Holocaust [revisionist].[106][107][108]

Rothbard endorsed Barnes's revisionism on World War II, favorably citing his view that "the murder of Germans and Japanese was the overriding aim of World War II". In addition to broadly supporting his historical views, Rothbard promoted Barnes as an influence for future revisionists.[109]

Rothbard's endorsing of World War II revisionism and his association with Barnes and other Holocaust [revisionists] have drawn criticism from within the political right. Kevin D. Williamson wrote an opinion piece published by National Review which condemned Rothbard for "making common cause with the 'revisionist' historians of the Third Reich", a term he used to describe American Holocaust [revisionists] associated with Rothbard, such as James J. Martin of the Institute for Historical Review.
The piece also characterised "Rothbard and his faction" as being "culpably indulgent" of Holocaust [revision], the view which "specifically denies that the Holocaust actually happened or holds that it was in some way exaggerated".[110]

In an article for Rothbard's 50th birthday, Rothbard's friend and Buffalo State College historian Ralph Raico stated that Rothbard "is the main reason that revisionism has become a crucial part of the whole libertarian position".[111]

When Pat Buchanan raised objections to facts regarding the Treblinka Concentration Camp's extermination of more than 780,000 Jews in the Holocaust, he was defended by none other than Rothbard. The suggestion by Buchanan that known facts in the Holocaust were fabricated by the Jewish victims is indeed anti-Semitic. Rothbard defended the indefensible.

"When people who are honestly mistaken learn the truth,
they either cease being mistaken
or they cease being honest"
-- Anonymous

As Jews are currently conducting a campaign to eradicate anything exposing their collective lies and deceptions about their WW2 experience, I here present for posterity the writings in full of a Jew who survived Third Reich concentration camps and ghettoes.

Oy vey, another hoax!
So, yet another “Holocaust memoir” has been exposed as a hoax. This time it’s the “love story” of Herman Rosenblat (who, it so happened, was sent from the ghetto of Piotrków to Buchenwald, as I was) and his wife Roma. For over a decade the fairy-tale story of the boy who was given apples through a concentration-camp fence by a girl whom he later met on a blind date and married, as implausible as it was, circulated in the American media, including appearances on Oprah Winfrey’s show. Finally Herman Rosenblat has admitted that the tale was a fabrication.

Allow me to quote from an essay of mine, written in March 2005:

I have a rule of thumb that I have followed for sixty years: any Polish Jew’s account of his or her experiences during World War II must be taken with a grain of salt. So it is, for example, that the posthumous unraveling of the fraud that was Jerzy Kosinski’s autobiography only confirmed what I had already suspected. And when I saw the film Europa Europa I could only laugh at the subtitle “A True Story” that its poster bore; the filmmaker, intentionally or not, sabotages the film’s veracity with an epilogue in which the man whose tale is told is shown on a Tel Aviv beach, singing a Hebrew song and displaying a nose that was worthy of a caricature in Der Stürmer and would certainly make his passing as an Aryan less than plausible.

If any literary agent, publisher, editor or screenwriter were to seek my advice, it would be this: if any purported Holocaust memoir from a Polish Jew sounds like fiction, it probably is.

"When people who are honestly mistaken learn the truth,
they either cease being mistaken
or they cease being honest"
-- Anonymous

I have just read a book titled Leap for life by Rut Wermuth Burak, published in 2010 and subtitled A story of survival and reunion. It’s the first memoir by a Polish Jew who lived through World War II in Nazi-occupied Europe that has struck me as truthful.

Actually, the book that I read was the Polish original, published in 2002, titled Spotkałam Ludzi (“I met people”) and subtitled (in Polish) “A story about a tragic beginning and an extraordinary ending.” The author is presented as Ruta Wermuth; not only is her married name absent from the title page but it’s referred to only by its initial in the book, for some reason unknown to me.

I have already written about the tendency of my fellow Polish Jews to overdramatize, if not fictionalize, their experiences during World War II; well-known examples include Jerzy Kosiński, Luba Tryszynska (“the Angel of Bergen-Belsen”), Solomon Perel (“Europa, Europa”) and Herman Rosenblat {“An Angel at the Fence”). I have also found this tendency in personal accounts by acquaintances. Perhaps they took their inspiration from the originator of the genre, Elie Wiesel, whose hugely successful Night trilogy was later admitted by him to be semi-fictional.

But Rut(a) Wermuth, unlike the people cited above, did not write her memoir for a Western audience; the English version seems to have been an afterthought encouraged by her brother’s non-Polish-speaking family in England. Instead, she wrote it for her fellow Poles. (I have long maintained that Polish Jew does not equal Pole, but she chose to become a Pole by marrying one, living in Poland and hiding her Jewishness until late in life.) And not only do Poles know a little more about the reality of World War II in Eastern Europe than Westerners do, but they are likely to judge any such account by a Jew critically if not suspiciously.

Not only is the book (in my view) truthful but it’s fascinating and deeply moving. I recommend it.

.
A British Labour Party member of Parliament was recently suspended by that party for arguing that it had been too submissive and apologetic in response to the smear campaign being directed against it claiming institutionalised anti-semitism within its ranks.He was also accused of supporting a Holocaust denier.
The accusation from Jewish groups was ludicrous and the investigating commitee reinstated him.
There was immediately a furious reaction from Jewish groups and from Labour Friends of Israel members.

Here, that ex-Jewish person who was the alleged 'Holocaust denier' responds.
Read on...

The Labour Party is now a comedy act. Even when it does the right thing, it is quick to admit it occurred by mistake. Three days ago the Party decided to let MP Chris Williamson back into its ranks, a decision that seemed to convince some that Corbyn finally grew a pair. Apparently, it didn’t take more than 72 hours for the party to humiliatingly reverse its decision and bow in to pressure mounted on its leadership by the Jewish Lobby, Labour Friends of Israel and, believe it or not, a bunch of party staffers who “demanded,” no more no less, an “immediate review” of the decision regarding Chris Williamson.

The signatories, whom according to the Jewish News included the “vast majority of remaining Jewish party staff,” wished “to remain anonymous for fear of losing their employment.” Once again we are provided with an unprecedented glimpse into the unethical nature of the Zionist operation. Our ‘anonymous’ staffers signed on a letter demanding that the party suspends an elected MP and let him practically lose his job, yet asked to remain anonymous so that they can keep their own.

On my part, I have been entertained in the last few days seeing some of the most horrendous Labour politicians lying about me in an attempt to smear MP Williamson. Two days ago I posted a video deconstructing unfounded nonsense that MP Margaret Hodge attributed to me and also challenged the ignoramus Lord Falconer’s drivel concerning my work. Yet, I was surprised to find out that the anonymous Labour staffers actually described me accurately. The staffers demanded MP Williamson to be ejected from the party, with one reason being that “he backed a petition in support of Gilad Atzmon, who has denounced the ‘holocaust religion’ and suggested that there is a Zionist plan for world domination.”

I am here to admit that only rarely do I see my detractors referring to my words and work genuinely. However, I would like to point out to the anonymous staffers that Zionist world domination is not ‘a plan’ anymore, it is the reality in which we live. With the Zionist LFI terrorising the Labour Leadership on a daily basis, with 80% of Tory MPs being members of the Zionist CFI, with AIPAC dominating American foreign policy, with the USA and Britain launching criminal wars following Zio-con immoral interventionist mantras, Zionism dominating world politics is not an abstract ‘plan.’ It is mainstream news!

But the staffers were also genuine describing me as a person who denounces the holocaust religion.

In my work I pay great respect to the Israeli philosopher Prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who coined the notion “Holocaust religion” back in the 1970s. Leibowitz detected that Jews believe in many different things: Judaism, Bolshevism, Human Rights, Zionism, ‘anti-Zionism’ but all Jews believe in the Holocaust. Leibowitz, himself an orthodox Jew, opposed the Holocaust Religion. He stated occasionally that all historical events, no matter how catastrophic, are religiously insignificant.

In 1987 Adi Ophir, another prominent Israeli philosopher, offered his own criticism of the Holocaust religion. In his paper On Sanctifying the Holocaust: An Anti-Theological Treatise, Ophir admitted that “a religious consciousness built around the Holocaust may become the central aspect of a new religion.”

Ophir listed the four commandments of the new religion:

Ophir wrote:1. “Thou shalt have no other holocaust.”

2. “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or likeness.” …

3. “Thou shalt not take the name in vain.”

4. “Remember the day of the Holocaust to keep it holy, in memory of the destruction of the Jews of Europe.”

Though Ophir’s formulations are understandably dated, my work on Holocaust Religion is consistent with the critical discourse offered by the two Israeli philosophers. In The Wandering Who I argue that the Holocaust discourse in its current form contains numerous essential religious elements. It has priests and prophets. It has commandments and dogmas (e.g. ‘Never Again’) and rituals (memorial days, pilgrimage to Auschwitz, etc.). It has an established, esoteric symbolic order (good, evil, death, liberation). It also has a temple, Yad Vashem, and shrines – Holocaust museums in capital cities worldwide. The Holocaust religion is also maintained by a massive global financial network, what Norman Finkelstein terms the ‘Holocaust industry’. This new religion is coherent enough to define its ‘antichrists’ (i.e. Holocaust deniers), and powerful enough to persecute them (through Holocaust-denial and hate-speech laws).

I also argue that the Holocaust religion is the conclusive and final stage in the Jewish dialectic; it is the end of Jewish history. The new religion allocates to Jews a central role within their own universe. In the new religion: the ‘sufferer’ and the ‘innocent’ march toward ‘redemption’ and ‘empowerment.’ God is out of the game and has been sacked, having failed in his historic mission. He wasn’t there to save the Jews, after all. In the new religion ‘the Jew’, as the new Jewish God, redeems himself or herself.

I indeed denounce the new religion and for the obvious ethical and humanist reasons. The holocaust religion adheres to the primacy of one people. It is an anti-universal precept that offers no hope, mercy or compassion. It instead produces a rationale for more oppression, global conflicts and havoc. It is hardly a surprise that the many people who adhere to the holocaust are engaged in the destruction of Palestine and its indigenous people. As far as I can say, the Holocaust religion is a blind, non-empathic precept. If the Holocaust is the new global religion all I ask is for the British Labour Party, its staffers and councilors to respect my right to be agnostic, a non-believer, an atheist.

And if MP Williamson is expelled from the Labour party for me upholding such views, maybe MP Williamson should consider giving me a call and thanking me for liberating him from his reactionary Zionised party.

Is Gilad a ‘Holocaust Denier?’
I have been accused of being a ‘Holocaust denier’ or a Holocaust revisionist. This is simply false. I have never denied the Holocaust nor have I written a single revisionist text as I am not an historian of any sort. I guess no need to mention once again that my mother’s family suffered enormously in that terrible period.

I am a philosopher. As such, I argue that this chapter in our past should be treated not as a religion or dogma, but must, like all other past events, be subject to scrutiny and open discussion. If history is the art of narrating the past as we move along, then revising our understanding of the past is the true meaning of the historical endeavour. In my work I argue that engaging in a discourse of history that is open to revision is at the core of the ethical insight.

It is also crucial to mention that the notion of ‘holocaust religion’ was actually coined by the legendary Israeli philosopher prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz back in the 1970s. Leibowitz was followed by Adi Ophir, another prominent Israeli philosopher who offered his own criticism of the Holocaust religion in his paper On Sanctifying the Holocaust: An Anti-Theological Treatise.

Did Gilad really say that Hitler was right after all?
My words as they appear in my 2011 book, “The Wandering Who?” shows that I said the opposite: even the thought by some that Hitler might have been right is presented as an unacceptable scenario.

“We, for instance, can envisage an horrific situation in which an Israeli so-called ‘pre-emptive’ nuclear attack on Iran escalates into a disastrous nuclear war, in which tens of millions of people perish. I guess that amongst the survivors of such a nightmare scenario, some may be bold enough to argue that ‘Hitler might have been right after all.’ The above is obviously a fictional scenario, and by no means a wishful one, yet such a vision of a ‘possible’ horrific development should restrain Israeli or Zionist aggression towards Iran.” (The Wandering Who? pg 179)

As you can read, my actual words are diametrically opposed to the manufactured misquotes attributed to me by various Zionist pressure groups. I used the extreme example of a nuclear war to argue that Israel should finally seek peace with its neighbours to deny anyone the thought that Hitler was right after all.

Did Gilad ask Jews to apologise for the Holocaust?
In 2014, in the light of huge anti Jewish protests in Paris, I wrote a piece titled Holocaust Day – The Time Is Ripe For A Jewish Apology. In the article I briefly elaborated on historical hatred of Jews and the Zionist promise to prevent the Jewish fate by ‘fixing’ the Jews and making them ‘people like all other people.’ I closed the article with the following paragraph. “Many Jews around the world are commemorating the Holocaust this week. But if I am correct, maybe the time is ripe for Jewish and Zionist organisations to draw the real and most important lesson from the Holocaust. Instead of constantly blaming the Goyim for inflicting pain on Jews, it is time for Jews to look in the mirror and try to identify what it is in Jews and their culture that evokes so much fury. It may even be possible that some Jews would take this opportunity to apologise to the Gentiles around them for evoking all this anger.”

Nowhere in the article did I suggest Jews apologise for the Holocaust. I accept that my words may be infuriating to those who are contemptuous of conciliatory efforts. I reckon that it would not be such a bad idea for Campaign Against Antisemitism to apologise to Labour members and Jeremy Corbyn whom they smeared mercilessly. The British Chief Rabbi could join them, as might the editors of the three British Jewish papers who literally referred to Corbyn as an ‘existential threat’ and practically equated him with Hitler. Such a peace-seeking approach on the part of some Jewish institutions will help to diffuse the anger these bodies engendered during the GE 2019 amongst many segments of the British Left.

Is Gilad a “promoter of classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theories?”
According to the ADL, I’m an “outspoken promoter of classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and a fierce critic of the State of Israel.” I am indeed a fierce critic of Israel and I am outspoken. But not only do I not promote ‘antisemitic conspiracy theories,’ as I repeatedly state throughout my entire body of work, ‘there are no Jewish conspiracies. Everything is done in the open’ and in front of our eyes.

What I do observe is that we cannot speak about any of that: Jewish power, as I define it, is the power to suppress criticism of Jewish power. The Israel Lobby dominates American foreign policy, it pushes for a conflict with Iran. Similarly, the Congress’ performance of one standing ovation after the other for Netanyahu wasn’t a secret ritual. In Britain, Jewish institutions such as the Jewish papers, the Chief Rabbi and a Jewish charity declared an open war on the opposition party and its leader. None of that was ‘conspiratorial’ or secretive. We are dealing with mainstream news, yet we dare not talk about it let alone criticise it.

Evoking animosity in others
In 2013 I was interviewed by Swiss writer Alimuddin Usmanani who asked me to define what it means to be a Jew. My answer was short and conclusive: “To be a Jew is to evoke animosity in others.” My answer was provocative and at least as challenging as the official Tikun Olam’s answer to the same question, i.e., ‘to be a Jew is to fix the world.’ However, while there are no statistics that show that Jews are actually engaged in fixing the world, my critics within the CAA, the ADL, The Jewish Chronicle and other Zionists institutions publish polls on an almost daily basis that suggest that Jews are hated globally and locally.

The ethos that drove early Labour Zionism both ideologically and politically was the acceptance that, for one reason or another, Jews can’t assimilate and would be safer somewhere else where they would become, through political training, into ‘people like all other people.’ I do not say that Jews should be hated. Rather like those early Zionists, I contend that Jewish institutions must self-reflect. Instead of accusing Goyim, Brits, Labour members, Americans, etc. they should engage in a true introspective process. Crying about antisemitism and/or terrorising jazz clubs and music venues won’t solve the Jewish problem, it will make it worse and the situation is clearly deteriorating as the AD L/CAA/CST statistics on anti semitism reveal.

Is David Duke a humanist?
I oppose all forms of biologically oriented politics. I oppose all forms of politics that are defined by race, gender or sexual orientation. I contend that politics ought to unite us as equals rather than divide us on the basis of biology. David Duke and I hold distinctly opposite positions on this and other fundamental issues.

In March 2014 I gave an interview to larmurerie.fr/ I can’t trace the original French article but a Google translation of the French original exists on my site. I was asked by the French Journalist the following question: Many French people share your opinion. For example, there is a French thinker, Hervé Ryssen, who uses the same metaphor as you when you talk about the mirror, saying that when a Jew accuses you of being an anti-semite, you just have to read the mirror image of the argument to reveal his racism towards goyim.”

My answer was as follows. “I actually use the word projection, but the mirror image is no doubt similar. And projection, by the way, is something that Freud taught us about. You know, we have to admit that some of the most interesting humanists in the history of the West are Jews: Christ, Spinoza, Marx were Jews. Why is that?…Now there is something very interesting and it’s again the first time I’m saying it. The left is devastated by David Duke for instance. He was in the KKK when he was young. But here is something quite amazing: I read him and I was shocked to find out that this guy knows more about Jewish identity than I do! How could a supposedly ‘racist’ Gentile who probably never entered a synagogue knows more than I do about Judaism? The reason is in fact very simple: he is a proud white man. He’s interested in nationalism, in the culture of his own people, so he understands things that I am not even allowed to think about. Believe it or not, even as a Jew, I wasn’t allowed to think of myself as a racist. I was a racist, maybe I am still one, but I was not allowed to acknowledge it. Once he acknowledges that he’s talking about white people’s rights, in a way he thinks like Avigdor Lieberman! But in fact, he is way better than Lieberman. David Duke is a humanist because he says, «I want to celebrate my right and you should celebrate your rights» whether you are Muslim or black or whatever. He believes that all people should celebrate their rights, this is his current philosophy . Avidgor Liberman is not a humanist, because he wants to celebrate his rights at the expense of other people.”

In my book, Humanism is primarily a universal adventure. Duke, today, is no doubt a separatist. He prefers to see people living in partitioned enclaves, he opposes immigration and his political thought is racially oriented, yet, if I understand it correctly, he believes that all people regardless of their race, ethnicity, skin colour or religion should enjoy such a right. At least in comparison with the right wing Zionist philosophy that adheres to the idea that one people should celebrate their self determination on the expense of another people, Duke’s current offering is more ethical, universal and humane. I understand that some Jews may be upset by the comparison, however, the way to deal with disagreement is to produce a counter argument rather than terrorising the music community. I myself hold completely opposing views to Duke’s on the matter: I believe that people should learn to live together and seek harmony. This is why I left Israel. However, despite of my disagreement with Duke on some fundamental and crucial issues, in consistance with the Western intellectual tradition, I take pride in making an effort to understand positions before I criticize them.

"When people who are honestly mistaken learn the truth,
they either cease being mistaken
or they cease being honest"
-- Anonymous

The following is part of an interview of someone who says he the son of two Jewish parents one of whom (his mother) is an illegal Jewish settler on Palestinian territory. He converted to christianity and says he no longer regards himself as 'Jewish'.
He goes by the name Israel Adam Shamir.
He was interviewed in 2011 in a café in Moscow by Will Yakowicz (seen below on the left) who had flown from New York to Russia for the interview.
Shamir wrote:"I answered all his questions even though they became increasingly combative as the interview progressed".

Shamir is asked about what is called 'the holocaust', about Auschwitz, about Norman Finkelstein, Jewishness, the spelling of 'hollow-cost', accusations of anti-semitism made against each other by different types of Jews, and much else.

The interview confirms that that which since the 1970's has becoming increasingly enshrined in the public consciousness under the political rubric "holocaust', is being challenged. We here at RODOH, CODOH and elsewhere are the latest part of that vanguard. We represent currently a minority. But we are a growing minority.

Certain people who were born into families regarding themselves as 'Jewish' have been powerful exposers of truth concerning the manipulative and coercive nature of this political rubric. These 'Jews' have been powerful exposers of aspects of that manipulative narrative because the fallacious ad hominem attack of anti-semite cannot credibly be levelled at them, and thus their testimony, and their argument pierces that often bogus and desperate defence.

This topic thread is a repository of some of these 'Jewish' people who questioned the compulsory mythology that consitutes 'the Shoah' shibboleth.
Shamir is one such, but he remains a puzzling personality who Norman Finkelstein states has invented much of his claimed biography. David Irving claimed Shamir wrote to him offering to sell WW2 nazi memorabilia from Russia. “Irving did not respond to Shamir and published a letter stating that the items were stolen and whoever is selling them is doing so against German and Russian law. Irving also reported Shamir's proposal to the German authorities and neglected further attempts from Shamir to contact him.”

Here is the final part of an interview with one such person who appears to be willing to analyse the phenomena of enforced 'belief' which is 'the holocaust'...

Will: and what is hatred?

Shamir: this is something I never experienced.

Will: but so many people smear you?

Shamir: I think they have practical reasons. I do not believe they do it out of hatred. We tend to judge people by our own measure; if one is mercantile, he believes that others are mercantile. That is what Talmud says: Posel bemumo posel. Provided I never experience hatred, it is difficult for me to believe that others experience hatred to me.

Will: Can one be provoked to hatred? You’ve seen settlers in the West Bank doing awful things…

Shamir: One can be annoyed, but hatred is a very strong emotion, and I never felt it.

Will: You compared the IDF soldiers with Nazis.

Shamir: Not out of hatred; not even out of anger, because if one writes angrily, people will not read it. I do not write angrily because it is counterproductive. Anger is a very rare feeling I would indulge myself in for this reason.

Will: I’ve been to the West Bank and I interviewed some murderous settlers. Do you think Jews have a reservoir for hatred?

Shamir: People can be trained to hate, by speaking endlessly of your suffering, by repeating forever how you and your relatives were mistreated.

Will: When I was there [in the West Bank] I saw the settlers are very hostile to Palestinians.

Shamir: Yes, this is very silly. You know my mother is a settler. Very ideological, she can speak forever about how awful is everybody to them. I tried many times to convince her. They should try to live together in peace with their neighbours.

Will: it must be hard for her to read your stuff, as she is a settler

Shamir: yes she does not like it.

Will: my mother does not like what I write

Shamir: We are not obliged to write in a way to please our mothers. The Japanese say the bond between a child and parent is a one generation bond; the bond of husband and wife is two generations bond; the bond of master and disciple survives three generations. It is reasonable for we choose our spouses and even more so we choose and persevere with choosing our masters, but we do not choose our mothers.

Will: How did you choose your wife?

Shamir: I was married twice, and both times I realised immediately from the first sight that is what I want.

Will: Where did you meet your current wife?

Shamir: In Eilat.

Will: Is she an Israeli?

Shamir: Yes. That was almost twenty years ago. I was married to my first wife for fifteen years since I was thirty.

Will: What is happiness?

Shamir: negatively speaking, it is the absence of anxiety. Happiness is something you experience after a good church service. Peace of mind.

Will: Are you happy now?

Shamir: Very often

Will: And right now?

Shamir: That would be very odd! Happiness is a sublime moment; it is not something we should wish for twenty hours a day. Angels are always happy. Read Anatole France, he wrote a lot about angels, all his books delightful.

Will: If you could be a supernatural being what would you be?

Shamir: Bodhisattva; that is one who declined to become a Buddha in order to remain on earth and help other people to reach enlightenment. A man is given a chance to become a Buddha, to leave this life of vanity, but Bodhisattva refuses because he feels that there are things to be done here. I do not say I am, I say that is what I’d like to be. One should help people to come to life.

44:30 Here the interview becomes more controversial and tense

Will: You said in interview to Mohammed Omer that anti-Semitism is an article of Jewish faith; Jews believe that Jews and Gentiles must hate each other. Can you elaborate?

Shamir: How do the Jews explain hatred of Gentiles? By their envy. They say that everybody is envious of Jews, and for this reason they hate. It is an article of Jewish faith that everybody should be envious of Jews because Jews are close to God. I hardly ever met a person who would be envious of Jews. That is why I do not believe in existence of anti-Semitism. I’ve met people who were described as anti-Semites; some of them would hate the concept, the idea of Jews but hardly anybody would hate Jews as persons.

Will: Do you think Hitler hated Jews, or Jews hated Hitler?

Shamir: Hitler perceived the Jews as an idea opposing the Aryan idea. He followed the concepts of Weininger; Otto Weininger, an Austrian Jew from Vienna, an elder contemporary of Hitler, a young man who committed suicide. Hitler followed his idea of paradigmatic struggling figures of Jew and Aryan.

Will: People label you as anti-Semite, and you said that if one is not called anti-Semite, something must be wrong.

Shamir: Sometimes I speak in paradoxes so the people would pay attention. One should make people listen to you. The meaning is: if you are never called an anti-Semite it means you never spoke against some awful things, for instance against Bernie Madoff, because if you would, you would be called ‘antisemite’. Anyway this accusation does not mean much for Jews; you’ve been to Israel, you know people call each other ‘antisemite’ easily.

Will: So anti-Semite is an empty word?

Shamir: Yes, for us in Israel it is.

Will: If somebody would tell you “I hate Jews and I wish that Hitler killed all of them”, what would you say?

Shamir: I’ve heard it more than once from Sephardi Jews in Israel; they say that when they meet an Ashkenazi Jew sometimes. I never felt strong about that. I understand they feel mistreated by Ashkenazi Jews, so they say: “Pity you did not burn in Auschwitz”.

Will: What an awful thing to say!

Shamir: One understands that a person speaks emotionally because he is upset.

Will: Don’t you think people should be held accountable for what they say?

Shamir: People do say things… we do not know whether they mean what they say.

Will: What would you say to a person who says: Israel, it’s too bad that your family did not die?

Shamir: I’d reply: that’s your bad luck.

Will: Won’t you be hurt?

Shamir: Not really. I experienced these things many times, perhaps 5 or 10 times, and I did not even felt annoyed.

Will: You say Auschwitz, but by your definition Auschwitz was a Red Cross internment camp? [This is one of the accusations levelled at Shamir by the holocaust expert Davis whose expertise was paid for by John Sweeney of the BBC show Panorama. The comment is based on Shamir’s critique of his good friend Gilad Atzmon’s remark on why the allies did not bomb Auschwitz. Shamir simply said that Auschwitz was considered an internment camp “attended by the Red Cross” and that is why it was not bombed]

Shamir: Oh no

Will: So what is your definition of Auschwitz?

Shamir: I have absolutely no interest in that. And no definition of my own. I’ve said something entirely different: that Auschwitz was perceived as internment camp.

Will: Perceived by whom?

Shamir: By everybody: by Jews in Palestine, by the allies, by the Russians, by the Americans. When the first rumours of mass annihilation came to Palestine they were strongly refuted by the Jewish authorities. They wrote in newspapers: life is bad as it is, war is bad as it is, and some people bring such horrible stories… The Jewish authorities were strongly against this sort of rumour. Surely Auschwitz was perceived as a deportation camp, not a resort, quite an awful place to be sure. “Concentration camp” was used before, by the Brits in Anglo-Boer War in the beginning of 20th century; there the expression was minted.

Will: But Auschwitz as a place for extermination of Jews?

Shamir: This idea came to being only after the war.
Will: So it was just a rumour?

Shamir: No, I did not say that at all. What I said is “when the rumours came etc”. I’ll make myself clear. I am not all that much interested in what happened in reality. I am interested in perceptions. What I am dealing with is perceptions. So the perception [of Auschwitz] during the war was of a quite awful deportation camp, where people were kept, forced to hard labour. Only after the war a different perception was formed: that of mass annihilation, mass murder. But is not a universal, or even a known perception during the war.

Will: So it is not a fact that there was mass annihilation?

Shamir: I did not say that, and I did not intend to say that; what I say is something different, about the perceptions.

Will: But which perception is true?

Shamir: I am not interested in this question; it is outside of my sphere of interests.

Will: So it does not matter for you?

Shamir: There are so many debates of this sort: how many Armenians were killed and when and where, or how many Ukrainians were killed by Holodomor, I am not interested in this sort of stuff.

Will [persists]: But can you comment at all whether these things happened?

Shamir: I have no knowledge about it at all. Unless one wants to just repeat what others say one should learn the subject and I am not interested. I am not interested because I reject the idea. Why people speak of that: because they think it is important. That it has salvific value of it; that it brings geula, salvation. But I do not think so. Death does not bring salvation. For this reason I am not possibly interested.

Will: You said you should reject the story of Holocaust [Will is probably referring to an article in which I say: “As for the accusation of ‘Holocaust denial’, my family lost too many of its sons and daughters for me to deny the facts of Jewish tragedy, but I do deny its religious salvific significance implied in the very term ‘Holocaust’; I do deny its metaphysical uniqueness, I do deny the morbid cult of Holocaust and I think every God-fearing man, a Jew, a Christian or a Muslim should reject it as Abraham rejected and smashed idols. I deny that it is good to remember or immortalize such traumatic events, and I wrote many articles against modern obsession with massacres, be it Jewish holocaust of 1940s, Armenian massacre of 1915, Ukrainian “holodomor”, Polish Katyn, Khmer Rouge etc. Poles, Armenians, Ukrainians understood me, so did Jews – otherwise I would be charged with the crime of factual denial which is known to the Israeli law.”]

Shamir: That is right.
Will: So you do not deny Holocaust?

Shamir: That’s right, I do not.

Will: You have a witty way of spelling Holocaust as Hollow-Cost, in your book Masters of Discourse.

Shamir: I doubt I did; I do not remember it. This pun is not high class.

Will: One does not have to be high class all the time.

Shamir: Yes, but one should try not to go down too far.

Will: Do you consider yourself Siberian, Swedish, or what?

Shamir: This is a difficult question for me.

Will: One of your names is “Joran Jermas”. This is the name on your Swedish passport. Where does it come from?

Shamir: When I came under attack I was worried to lose my freedom of movement, of being stopped or bothered when checking into a hotel. So it was a question of anonymity. If I were to write under an assumed name from beginning, it would be easier; but as I used my real name, I had to assume another name for anonymity.

Will: So what is your real name?

Shamir: Israel Shamir

Will: So what about Israel Shamirer. People say this is your birth name.

Shamir: No idea where they get it. People provide me with so many names!

Will: Once you described Jews as virus in human form.

Shamir: I never did. This was an invention of the Jerusalem Post. They repeated it many times. People accused me of all sort of things.

Will: Smear jobs. Why do you think you are targeted?

Shamir: I say complicated things; so it would be easier if I’d say something else. So they misrepresent what I say. People are probably unhappy with what I say, so they add to make their case. Why can’t they say truth? I say and write enough things, but they still misquote or invent.

Will: So what are you trying to say?

Shamir: I say a lot, thousands of words. Tens of thousands.

Will: What is your attitude to life?

Shamir: I am very grateful to the Lord for what he gave me; for bad times so I’d appreciate good times; and for good times because they provided respite. Grateful for the world that was created for me. In Talmud, a disciple of Rabbi Akiba came to the Temple Mount and blessed the Lord for creating multitudes of people for him to worship with. He was a madman; but this feeling we experience that all was done for us: snow, throngs of people, forest – all that was created for me. Such a feeling causes a lot of gratitude.

[afterwards – some small talk about skating, fishing, New Jersey, until 1:14]

Will: Do you know whom I met in Brooklyn? I’ve met Norm Finkelstein. You say he is one of your best friends.

Shamir: Oh no, an acquaintance.

Will: He said not very nice things about you. He said you are sleazy, that you invented your personal history, and that is just a tip of an iceberg.

Shamir: I’m not too disappointed. He is doing very good job, Finkelstein does. He was very disappointed with me. He used to say that the Intifada has made one good thing: it brought Israel Shamir forth. He was keen; he thought I am doing wonderful things. But when I did not stop where he would like me to stop, he did not like it. He did not want me to criticize Jewish culture, Jewish faith; that I’d embrace Christ – that was very foreign for him, being a secular man. I did not promise him to do what he wants. Anyway I am fond of him: he is doing a very good job. I always stop people who criticize him. It is not necessary that everybody will follow my path, that they will reject what I reject and accept what I accept. So I am very positive about Norman Finkelstein. He is a wonderful guy; he is very fast on the draw. Very quick reaction. We appeared together in front of a huge multitude, thousand people, in the Columbia University in 2001. A lot of people. I had difficulty to reply as fast as he did. He impressed me. There was a Jewish guy, dressed Jewish way, he asked me: “Are you Jewish?” I must admit I did not know what to answer. This is a complicated question. Now I am surely not a Jew…

Will: but your parents are Jewish, so you must to be Jewish

Shamir: My parents are Jewish, but I am not. It is a question of choice, and I chose. But then I was in the middle of transition, so I could not answer neither Yes nor No. Norman stepped it and answered wittily for me; smoothing it over. So my memory of Norman is very positive; he is smart, and his logic is great.

[Shamir explains a conjecture that the past is being constantly re-written by our present-day actions. If it is re-written, it can be re-done, as well.]

Will: How far along are we with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?

Shamir: This is complicated matter. The Protocols describe the world spiritually impoverished, the world where Spirit is being destroyed. The Jewish part there is not decisive, what is decisive that’s destruction of spirit. And that is what many people feel that Spirit is destroyed. This is the concept of Kali Yuga. [Shamir spells and explains what it is] This is the same as the Protocols. One can imagine that there are some groups of people (the Protocols say it is Jews) who lead the way.

Will: Is it for real?

Shamir: The process of spiritual impoverishment is real.

Will: And are Jews behind it?

Shamir: No, not as the paramount force. Though some ideas of Jewish theology fit into it. We should try to understand why people connect Jews with the Kali Yuga process of decay. The Jews believe that non-Jews have no direct access to God. Only Jews have access to God, and non-Jews should only approach God via Jews. If a non-Jew has religion or learns the Bible or tries to access God, it is called in the Talmud a “theft of Israel’s legacy”. This theft is a crime; so from Jewish point of view, practically any spiritual involvement of a Gentile is a crime. Here it fits the Kali Yuga paradigm. However, Kali Yuga decay or de-spiritualization of the world is not a process controlled by humans (though it is certainly influenced by them).

Will: So what about the Elders of Zion?

Shamir: Elders of Zion is a figure of speech.

Will: So when you write about the Elders of Zion, you mean just a figure of speech?

Shamir: In my writings I did not go as far as I did just now; I just described the concept and summed up what others wrote. It is a complicated subject; orally one can explain it, but in writing: people can’t ask additional questions, so they end up misunderstanding. I wrote much more simple things; one long piece or two short pieces. One, explaining how people saw it, notably how Solzhenitsyn saw it; for he insightfully wrote about the Elders. [Shamir spells out Solzhenitsyn and explains who he was]. Solzhenitsyn saw the thought behind the Protocols not as a domination drive but as a process of spiritual destruction.

Will: You write about American Goyim being brainwashed by Jewish media lords. Can you explain? Do you think I am brainwashed goy? [Actually until this moment, I was certain that the young man is of Jewish origin. Here he says he is not. But it does not matter; what I say to a Jew is what I say to a non-Jew].

Shamir: How could I know about you personally? Do not turn it into something so personal.

Will: But what do they want to achieve by their brainwashing of Goyim?

Shamir: They want to induce you with thought that Jews are special.

Will: The Jews are not special? Are they like everybody else, or worse?

Shamir: Jews are not special; they are like everybody else. They want to induce you with thought that everything about Jews is special; whether it is State of Israel, or Holocaust. In my view, it is not so.

Will: Do you want to say that Jews and Gentiles are the same?

Shamir: My view is a bit more complicated. I do not think that Jews is a separate self-evident category like zebra. You see a zebra; you know it is zebra. With Jews it is not like that. A Jew is one who willingly says: “I belong to this group”. It is a question of choice.

Will: Is it good or bad to be a Jew?

Shamir: I think it is a wrong choice. It would be better for an American to be an American like all his neighbors, instead of claiming that he is special, a Jew. It is better for people to be a part of the community they live in. If they would have separate culture, like for instance Assyrians in Moscow; they live separately among themselves. But Jews haven’t got this separate culture anymore, not in Russia or in the US.

Will: What about the West Bank? The Jewish settlements like one your mother lives in - isn’t it Jewish separate culture?

Shamir: Not really. It is a separate colonial setup. Technically they are Jewish, but actually they are a colonial enterprise, and that is why there are quite a lot of non-Jews in the settlements, there are Russians, French. My mother is frequently upset they celebrate Christmas. The settlements could be moved to Rhodesia or to Wild West of 19th century. Some of the settlers go there for economical advantages, because they want to live in nice countryside, some are attracted by the scenery, and some go for some crazy reasons. I do not know the settlers all that much; I saw them from outside, from Palestinian point of view. They are possessed by feeling they are so special, so they establish no-go zones for natives around the settlements.

Will: Do you say you are not a Russian representative for Wikileaks?

Shamir: That’s right. I am not. I am a journalist accredited with Wikileaks.

Will: I spoke to Kristinn [Hraffson, the Wikileaks spokesman] and he said that you are their Russian representative.

Shamir: So he said.

[AFTER 1:45 – small talk].

Shamir: Why did you decide to write about me?

Will: You are one of the most important journalists of our age. Are you a freedom fighter, a crusader of truth?

Shamir: No, just a writer.

Will: Anyway you do not work for Jewish media lords. Do you think I do work for Jewish media lords?

Shamir: I do not know. You published too little to know; you are still very young to know.

Will: If one says to you ‘the state of Israel’ what do you think first?

Shamir: I’ll think of the country first, of its landscape, of its people. “The state of Israel” is a present political setup, it was not the setup some 60 years ago, and it may not last. It is transient feature.

Will: You said the Jews will thrive under Islamic state…

Shamir: I say: there may be Islamic state, and it will not be tragedy, but it is not that I am a supporter of such a solution. In Israel, we have SHAS party, the party of religious Oriental Jews. This party is very similar to Hamas; I think they can become affiliated to each other – if and when there will be one man – one vote system in the land. Then Hamas plus Shas could become a leading force, but there are other forces - secular, liberal, socialist. We should not decide for people. But I do not exclude Hamas.

Will: Does Israel seek world domination?

Shamir: Israel as spiritual super-being wants to be the Church of the world.

Will: Israel should not exist, in your view?

Shamir: The state of Israel should be transformed into a state where everybody (people who claim they are Jews and those who do not) has equal rights.

Will: It was reported that you asked for cables about Jews. Why did you? Did you get any?

Shamir: Yes, I’ve a lot of cables concerning Jews.

Will: What do the cables say?

Shamir: I intend to write about it; I’ve had no time yet.

Will: One example?

Shamir: There is a cable from Moscow saying there is no anti-Semitism in Russia. [This cable was published by Komsomolskaya Pravda and by Counterpunch].

Will: If I had the black hat and curls, you think I’d be able to walk the streets of Moscow unmolested?

Shamir: So many people do.

Will: Give me another example?

Shamir: Demands for restitution of Jewish property. The US ambassadors in many countries fight for it.

Will: Is it right?

Shamir: It is too late, and it will cause too much trouble. Likewise, regarding restitution of Palestinian property; in some cases it can be done, but not totally.

Will: What is the first word that comes to mind when you hear the word “Jews”?

Shamir: “Not again”. I am very tired of hearing this word.

"When people who are honestly mistaken learn the truth,
they either cease being mistaken
or they cease being honest"
-- Anonymous